Chapter 884 Undersea Tunnel (1)

Berlin Palace.

Ordinary people can enjoy the leisure time of the festival, but Yannick does not have such leisure.

At this time, he was still reviewing various documents in the office.

"The Cubans want to cooperate with me?" Yannick curled his lips in disdain. Cooperation is based on equal strength. What strength does Cuba have to discuss cooperation with them? You should be thankful that you are not beaten back to the Stone Age. "Find some pro-German forces to cultivate." Cuba and Germany do not have much contact. As mentioned above, after the defeat of World War II, many German war criminals fled to Argentina, Peru and other South American countries; but there were very few who fled to Cuba; until 2015, the German Foreign Minister made his first official visit to Cuba. Therefore, there are no ready-made pro-German factions in Cuba today, and they need to be cultivated slowly.

"Guantanamo doesn't need to be returned to them, but the rent can be raised. The Americans only pay 4,000 US dollars a year, and we pay 100 times more."

Interestingly, the United States in the original time and space did not default on the mere 4,000 US dollars. It paid on time every year, and it was a national land rent approved by Congress. However, after the victory of the Cuban Revolution, the Cuban government never recognized this agreement and resolutely refused to collect the rent, which led to the US government trying every means to pay the money, and the Cuban government was vigilant and resolutely refused to accept it.

Once the Cuban government owed an American businessman 40,000 US dollars and could not pay it back. After hearing about it, the US government immediately paid the money on behalf of the Cuban government, and also said that this money was equivalent to the rent of Guantanamo for ten years.

The Cuban government responded quickly and paid the money immediately afterwards. At the same time, it also stated that it would resolutely not recognize the unequal treaty. The United States insisted that paying the money for Cuba was equivalent to paying the rent. Cuba said who cares about your stinky money, we paid it back ourselves; the final result was that the American businessman made 40,000 US dollars for nothing. Later, the US government could not pay the rent to Cuba, so it opened an account for Cuba in a Swiss bank and deposited 4,000 US dollars every year. However, the Cuban government never mentioned a penny of this account.

Of course, the United States did not return Guantanamo, and it has been staying there.

Due to the obvious inferiority in military force, the Cuban government can only cut off water, electricity, and personnel (Cubans are prohibited from being employed to serve the base), and is trying to force the United States to compromise through diplomacy and public pressure. The United States is rich and powerful, and it has built its own desalination facilities and power supply systems to be self-sufficient. As for public pressure, Americans just pretended not to hear it.

"Sign a resource mining contract with Cuba, and Panama too." Although Cuba and Panama are both small countries, they have a lot of mineral resources. For example, Cuba's iron ore reserves are about 3.5 billion tons, one of the largest reserves in the world; nickel reserves account for nearly half of the world. Panama's copper ore reserves exceed 200 million tons, ranking fourth in the world, etc. However, Yannick's most important thing is the Panama Canal. Just thinking about it makes me laugh. The canal that the Americans worked so hard to build ended up being given away to Germany for nothing. When the nuclear pollution in the canal section is completely cleared and traffic is restored, I wonder what the American top leaders will react to?

At this time, Anne came in to report. "Your Highness, Queen Elizabeth's plane took off and will arrive in about two hours."

"Got it." Nodding, a sudden flash of inspiration came to my mind, thinking of the English Channel Tunnel in later generations. This tunnel, also known as the Eurotunnel, is an important underground passage connecting Britain and France. It was built in 1994.

Although this tunnel, which took six years to build and has a 9-kilometer underwater section, is an important part of human engineering history, in fact, as early as 186 years before the tunnel was excavated, engineers were trying to turn the natural moat into a thoroughfare.

As early as 1802, French engineer Albert Mathieu envisioned connecting the two ends of the English Channel in the form of a tunnel, which was very popular with Napoleon; the French emperor even seriously promoted this bold idea of ​​oil lamp lighting, carriage hauling, and building a wooden ventilation tower protruding from the sea to the British during the Treaty of Amiens.

In the eyes of the British, this brain-opening project with the idea of ​​"getting to France in 2 hours by carriage" was full of French malice. After all, the English Channel was a natural barrier for the British Empire. The French actually wanted to build a project to easily pass through it? Absolutely not well-intentioned!

Sure enough, when the two countries fell out again the following year, the first proposal for this channel project naturally came to nothing.

In 1834, a young engineer named Aimetomed Garmond also became very interested in the idea of ​​connecting the two ends of the channel and began his research. It can be said that he spent all his property and efforts on this research. His predecessor Matthew's idea omitted a very important discussion: how to dig a tunnel under the sea? With the technology at that time, this was simply impossible. Degarmond's plan was to build a batch of large iron pipes in advance, connect them on the seabed by assembling them in sections, and then enter the pre-installed pipeline from the ground entrance after the entire line was laid, evacuate the accumulated water and add a waterproof masonry layer. He then spent another year to modify this plan: first lay a huge seabed construction belt with bricks and then drill holes inside to build a tunnel, which would take about 30 years.

This almost paranoid engineer even jumped into the English Channel holding a stone and dived to 30 meters below the sea. He collected rock samples from the seabed under the fierce current and the attack of eels. The sampling showed that the geology of the channel was ideal for tunnel construction. And this report also provided extremely valuable exploration information for future undersea tunnel projects.

This matter went more and more smoothly. His crazy dream was supported by his good friend Napoleon III, and the British media on the other side even broke the news that Queen Victoria praised this idea because she was well-known for her seasickness.

But soon after, a rather bloody thing happened. On the way to the Paris Opera House, Napoleon III's carriage was attacked by a bomb, killing 8 people on the spot and injuring more than 100 people. Although Napoleon III was not injured and it was found that the bombing was carried out by Italians, the Degamond undersea tunnel plan was shelved indefinitely because the bomb was suspected to be made in Birmingham, England.

After decades of hard work for this dream, it was all in vain. In 1870, his emperor friend abdicated due to defeat in the war. Unable to bear this blow, Degarmond died sadly a few years later.

However, he was called the "Father of the Undersea Tunnel" by later generations, which was also a kind of consolation.

The third person who came up with this idea was the British, who gained a lot of inspiration and enlightenment from Degarmond's research, and he also had a member of Congress as a backer. This time, the British side established a construction company, and the French side also completed the excavation test; just when both sides were ready to start construction with full enthusiasm, public opinion turned to the conservative side, the people were incited, and the project was demonized, so all attempts in the 19th century were rejected.